Method for producing an openly porous sintered metal film
AssigneeGKN Sinter Metals, LLC
InventorsPeter Neumann, Andreas Kuhstoss
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Abstract
A method for producing a thin openly porous metal film from a metal powder that can be sintered. The metal powder is suspended in a carrier fluid with a specific size distribution of particles, the suspension is applied to a supporting material in at least one thin film and dried, and the green layer thus formed is sintered. The thickness of the layer formed by suspension thus applied corresponds at least to the thickness (s) of the metal film to be produced after sintering, whereby (s) is at least three times the value of the diameter (D) of the powder particles, D=1-50 urn and the maximum thickness of the finished metal film is 500 μm.
Claims20
A process for manufacturing an openly porous, thin metal film from a sinterable metal powder comprising pure powder of a single metal, a mixture of pure powders of two or more metals, powders of metal alloys, or mixtures of said alloy powders with one or more pure metal powders, said sinterable metal powder having an average powder particle size of 1-50 microns, the process comprising the steps of:
- (a) suspending the powder in a carrier fluid comprising a binder and a solvent;
- (b) applying the suspension to a carrier substrate to form a metal layer having a thickness at least three times the diameter of the powder particles and a maximum thickness of 500 microns;
- (c) drying the metal layer to form a green layer;
- (d) sintering the green layer to form a metal film having a thickness corresponding to the thickness of the metal layer applied in step (b).
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.